We also got on board, in "Steerage" a few classes and decks below... Still a family balcony, though.
Agree that this Haven room looks awesome and modern! Our upgrade bid unfortunately didn't get called upon 😂
Sadly, our impression of the ship so far is more so/so from an average level paying customer's point of view...
And we don't even dislike the often critizized shower/wc/sink setup in the room. That's different, but we like it.
The room is rather dusty/not very thoroughly cleaned, has little and stupidly thought out storage and in general feels cramped over what we are used to (Mainly TUI Mein Schiff and Celebrity).
Let's see how our impression evolves over the next few days.
Balcony showing rust everywhere, balcony door handle almost falls off and more wear and tear can be seen around ship. Also, IT/infoscreens are not up to today's standard, stateroom TV is small and slow, big screen with info about officers near guest services is not touch etc...
Then the whole VAT story is in full swing. "Dear valued customer" letter at checkin, and bartenders are keen to tell you that you only pay tax, while presenting a slip over big and bold $36 or whatever (which you don't have to sign) just to show the VAT. quite confusing. As a Swiss and not part of the E. U. we might even try to reclaim just for the fun of it and principle 😜
Gotta read up on that, they even mention it in the letter.
Checkin was a relative breeze around 11ish, but we saw queues get much longer, later in the afternoon.
Overall, generally pleasant experience.
Also parking is close to perfect and quite affordable for the length of the cruise.
Cruise director and assistant cruise director are somewhat hard to understand, and this from a non-native speaker with a lot of leniency towards less than perfect pronounciation...
Guess they give them somewhere a chance to try out *LOL*
Also, lots of french speakers / canadian french pax. And rather unusual, even french announcements on board, at least for the safety stuff (from a guy who actually speaks perfect French) ...
Initial impression of crew otherwise is quite positive.
Upcharge stuff is generally very expensive, not limited to shore excursions. Got for instance stuck with the kids in the arcade hall (didn't spend any but they wouldn't leave and mistreat the buttons for a bit), nothing much below 2$, a "pass" for the cruise going for something like 175$ and not even applicable to all machines?! Yeah right.
Starbucks much the same, not even the basic of the basics coffe is "free at sea" *lol*
Expected it to be much that way, but considering NCL isn't exactly cheap in the first place, either customers are just very happy to spend big time or they are really trying to squeeze...
And what they consider "premium" and what not really comes down to the fine print and less to common sense 🤣
But it's nice to be on another ship and we'll sure enjoy the next almost two weeks!